Improvement in railroads



Nrrnn STATES RICHARD MONTGOMERY, OF NEV YORK, N. Y.

IMPROVEMENT IN RAILROADS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. Mig 2, dated February2l, 1865.

To all 'whom fit may concern Be it known that I, RICHARD MONTGOM- ERY,ofthe city and county of New York, in the State of New York, haveinvented certain Improvements in Railroads or in the Oonstructionthereof; and with the view of securing to myself, my legalrepresentatives, and assigns the exclusive right thereto under and inaccordance with the patent laws of the United States, I do herebydeclare that the following is a full and exact description thereof,reference being had to the accompanying drawings, constituting a part ofthis speciiication. i

The object of my invention is to furnish a aerial railroad particularlyadapted to the streets of cities and towns, but applicable also whereverelse such a structure would be found advantageous; and its natureconsists in the use in the construction thereof of corrugated beam-iron,its several parts properly secured together, and the whole supportedupon a solid base, and the use of a condensing-engine, or what is knownas a dummy-engine,77 attached to each car for propulsion, the Wheels ofthe car being constructed in a manner particularly adapted to this formof rail.

To enable others skilled in the art to make, construct, and use myinvention', I promulge the following description thereof, reserving tomyself, however, in doing so all `the rights guaranteed to me, my legalrepresentatives, or assigns by the laws and by the acts of Congress ofthe United States in such cases.

In the drawings hereto attached, forming, as before stated, a part ofthis specification, Figure A shows a section of the railroad constructedupon my plan when the structure occupies the whole width of the streetfrom curbstone to curbstone. Fig. lB shows a section of the road alongand overv the pavement or foot-walk. Nos. 1,2, 3, 4, and 5 are detailsof parts which will be referred to and more fully explained hereinafter.

It is a Well known fact that many of the principal streets and otherthorou ghfares of the larger cities are so crowded with omnibuses,carriages, drays, and other vehicles in that portion assigned them,while the footways are so obstructed with boxes, bales, barrels, 85e.,as to render them very inconvenient, and even dangerous to pedestrians.Even street-railroads as now constructed upon the surface of the groundafford but a partial relief in such cases, and,where the streets arevery narrow, become themselves an additional cause of obstruction anddanger. Subterraneous Ways and aerial roads of various kinds have beenproposed to obviate this difficulty, and some of the former haveactually been constructed and are now in use. There are, however, somany grave objections to these underground roads that they will probablynever come into general use. The aerial roads are free from many ofthese objections, and if constructed so as to offer but little if anyobstruction to travel, transportation, and the ordinary business of thestreet over and along which it runs, combining at the same time suchsolidity of structure as to remove all apprehension of danger from themind of the most timid person, and affording free and easy access to andegress from the vehicles passing along them, there seems no reason Whythey should not be adopted where the exigencies of the case require somesuch additional mode of transportation. The aerial railroad which I haveinventedfulfills all these requirements, as will be seen from thefollowing description.

rlhis railroad is supported upon columns, as shown at a a a a in Figs. Aand. B and in the detail sketch 5. These columns are constructed of twocorrugated beams brought together and properly fastened by rivetsthrough their flanges. Detail Fig. l shows a section of a column thusmade. They are intended to be of such a length as will raise therailroad to the required height above the general plane of the street orVpavement to give free and unobstructed passway for loaded vehicles,banners, and such other things as may require this condition of things.As a general rule, this height appears to be about fifteen feet, but Ido not confine myself to this or any other particular elevation. Thelower end of this column or these columns is firmly fixed in a solidbase-block or sill, a, (seen at b in detail, Fig. 5,) buried at a properdepth in the ground. rIhis base-block or sill may be of stone, iron,wood, or any other appropriate material. In Fig. A the columns arerepresented as placed opposite each other, one on each side of thestreet in line with or near the curbstone. In this arrangement thecrosslties c c c rest upon the tops of the two opposite columns,

. may be made of a single corrugated beam, as

that is,with theflan ges upwardfor the greater l cned to the adjacentbuilding.

and consequently stretch entirely across the wagon or carriage way ofthe street. They represented in the drawings, or,whe 1 'e greaterstiffness is required, they may be doubled and united as in the columns.Generally, however, a single beam will be sufficient, in which case Iprefer to place them, as shown, invertedconvenience of connecting themproperly with the rail. The head of the columns and-theend of ihecross-ties must be firmly secured together, and this may' be done byplates 0f ironpassing from the outer corrugation offl column up into theinverted corrugation of the cross-tie, and riveted or in any otherappropriate manner-as, forinstance, as shown in diagram No. 3. The railsare also of corrugated beam-iron laid withv their anges downward, andriveted or otherwise firmly fastened i to the cross-ties. If-it shouldbe deemed necessary, these rails may also be doubled or made ot' twobeams united as in the columns; but this would rarely be necessary forcars devoted only to the transportation of passengers, particularly ifthe supports, the columns, and cross-ties are not placed too far fromeach other. Whether the single or double beam be used, however, the railmust be so laid upon the cross-ties asto make the central and invertedarch of the beam to look upward to receive the flange of the car-wheel,as shown in Diagram 4. 'Ihe rails at their junctions are securedtogether by means of hat plates of iron extending a proper distancebeyond the ioint, placed in the double arches of the corrugation, andlirmly riveted through Vand through, as shown in Diagram 2, which is aninverted section of the rail, showing graphically this mode ofconnecting the rails to each other. These rails are of course fastenedproperly by riveting or otherwise to the crossties. The vnumber oftracks to be laid will be determined bythe capacity of the highway andthe travel. In Fig. A, I have shown two tracks; but I do :not confinemyself to this or any particular number.

Another form of constructing an aerial streetrailroad upon thisprinciple is shown in Fig. B. Here the track is chiefly within and overthe pavement or footway, supported by a single line of columns formedand supported or iXed below the surface ofthe ground, as described inFig. A. rIhe cross-ties d d are made to rest upon and are secured to theupper end ofthe column a a a, and supported at their outer extremity byarms e e, as shown in detail, Fig. No. 5. This gives a very solidsupport tothe rails; but it' greater steadiness should be deemednecessary the cross-ties may be fast-- The rails, cross-ties, and armsmay be made of single beams or double ones, like the columns as alreadyVdescribed. In both the forms f tracks footways may be made along thesides, as is shown in Fig. B and atfin the de- In neither one of theplans shown in Figs. A

and B will the columns interfere much more -with the ordinary use of ortravelupon the streets than -is now done by the vlamp-posts andhydrants; and, indeed, with columns consEructed upon my plan they may bemade a substitute both for the lamp-post and hydrantbox. It will be'seenfrom detail,Fig. l, which is a section of the column, that by itsconstruction it necessarily forms two oval cavities in its interior,extending from the bottom to the top. Through one of these, gas-pipe maybe carried and connected by aside tube to the lamp suspended from thecross tie or rail above, or otherwise supported, a d through the othercavity the water-pipe may be carried up to a proper height and a nozzleor st'opcock attached thereto, passing through an orifice in the side ofthe column. WhereV streets are well lighted, as they generally are nowalong the principal thoroughfares of large cities, the lamp-posts occurat about the intervals that would be required by the columns of arailroad constructed according to my invention; when that is the ease,the lamp post by the plan proposed might be entirely dispensed with.

By placing the beams for. the line of the track as shown in diagram gureNo. 4-that is, with the central arch of the corrugation inverted--a deepgroove is formed between the two outside arches, which groove receivesthe flan ges of the wh eels of the car. I prefer placing the flangeabout midway around the face or periphery of the wheel, as seen indiagram, as this throws an equal pressure and wear upon the two archesof the beam or rail. The flange might be placed on the inner edge of thewheel, as is ordinarily done with railroadcars, or on the outer edge oron both the inner and outer edge. These modifications would probablypresent themselves to any person entertaining fears of the filling up ofthe central groove by dirt, stones, snow or ice. In either case thetread of the wheel should be wide enough to rest on both the arches,because if only wide enough to cover one of them the weight of the caron this one would have a tendency to destroy the horizontal parallelismof the surface of the two arches of the beam or rail and cause the railon which the -wheel ran to wear much more rapidly than it would if theweight of the car were equally distributed between both.

I propose to use as the motive power for propelling the cars on thetrack a small condensing steam-engine, commonly known as a dummy ordummy-engine. Many objectail, Fig. 5, and from them steps, arranged attions present themselves to a stationary engine and endless chain; onewhich would be fatal to it in cities and towns is that the numerousstoppages that would necessarily take place when several cars wereattached to the same chain would produce so many interruptions to theprogress of the whole7 and so irnpede the movement of each, as to reducethe actual speed to a very low rate-too slow7 indeed, for most personswho would otherwise avail themselves of this mode of transportation.Like objections present themselves to what is known as the pneumaticsystem, as a motive power in this case.

Dummy-engines, I aml well aware, have heretofore been used on ordinarystreet-railroads; but I am not aware that they have ever before thisbeen used as a means of propulsion on aerial railroads.

Having thus fully set forth the nature of my invention7 what I claim,and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States, is asfollows:

1. The use of corrugated iron-beams in the construction ofaerialrailroads, substantially as set forth. l

2. The use of flat beams or bars of iron for connecting the ends of therails together, and also for connecting and fastening the columns ofsupport to the cross-ties, in the manner and for the purpose set forth.

3. The use of corrugated iron-rails, in combination with corrugated ironcrossties, and corrugated iron columns of support in the constructionof. aerial railroads.

lRICHARD MONTGOMERY. Witnesses:

R. A. ADAMS, ABRM. ADAMS.

